FREEDOMS OF THE ROAD
BY TIMOTHY AIKINS
I was born in rural Georgia in 1963, the youngest of five children in a Brady Bunch-style family made up of my mother Jean, my stepfather Charles, two full siblings and two stepsiblings. As the baby of the family, I was happily spoiled by everyone. I had a special bond with my stepfather. He was the one who took me fishing as well as coached me in baseball and football. He taught me everything that I knew and introduced me to the road. When I was about ten years old, my father, who was a truck driver, started taking me with him. Man, I was his trucking buddy.
On the road, I learned to drive big rigs and fill out logbooks. I learned the trucking culture for several years as I accompanied father on trips from the east coast to the west coast of America. I loved the freedoms of the open roads and especially being with my father. I was very proud to be his son. I felt a deep contentment during those happy years of traveling with him as we explored the roads of this beautiful country.
In 1977, when I was only thirteen-and-a-half years old, my father died of a massive heart attack. This incident devastated me. I remember clearly, I had been spending the night with a friend just down the road from our house. Around 5:30 am I heard my mother yelling hysterically, “Charles! Charles! Charles, wake up!! She screamed over and over.” I tried to run from my friend's house, but his mom would not let me go. Presumably, she recognized the seriousness of the situation. She had told me the ambulance was on the way, and everything would be okay. She did not know my father was already dead.
Confused and heartbroken from the unexpected loss, I became angry. I felt it was unjust that I didn't even get to say goodbye to my father. I was so overwhelmed; I could not get over it. I refused to go to the funeral home to view his body. Instead, I went to the movie theater and watched Star Wars over and over. To some it may seem strange that I did not go to the funeral home, I did not want to see my dad in a coffin. I had to confront reality at the gravesite, as the dirt was thrown on his coffin.
In reflection, I believe neither I, nor anyone around me, realized the magnitude of the grief I was experiencing during the weeks following my dad's death. Soon, I ran away from home and took a bus to South Carolina. I can’t pinpoint what specifically motivated me to leave, but I do know it became a pattern that overtook my life for the next decade — until my incarceration. As a grieving youth, I continued to leave home and return again and again. I recognize now that I was looking for something to restore the way I had felt when I was with my father.
A generation of young people, including myself, took to the adventure of the open road. I suppose it might be said that we were influenced by the hippie ethos of cooperation, as well as the seventies counter-culture ideas that rejected the comforts and the conformity of middle-class suburbanization. Hitching was common, at the time I was traveling around America. Many young people like me drifted across the country. We found casual work and used hard drugs, which (much like now) were abundant. By the time I was eighteen, I had run away from home for extensive periods of time. For long durations, I would just disappear on a traveling adventure. I would eventually return home, only to repeat the cycle.
In the eighties, when I was on one of my homeless traveling adventures, cocaine and heroin became my drugs of choice. This isn't so surprising, since the area in Georgia I grew up in is still known as "The Heroin Triangle." I even I shared these types of drugs with older ladies from my mother's work.
I understood how to live on the road. However, being a young and vulnerable teenager on my own was far different than when I'd been on the road with my father. My yearning for happiness soon changed into a life of degradation. Life on the road took a toll on me. My drug use was excessive, and I would reduce myself to selling myself for sex, drugs, and a place to sleep. At its core, my life became reduced to the travesty of personal survival and drug use.
I continued to live the homeless-drifter lifestyle up to 1987. I was without any moral compass, and I helped my co-defendant take a human life. After nearly 36 years of incarceration (and being clean and sober for that same period), I look back at my past and the devastation I caused. I know this has been a relatively lengthy story, but the point that I am hoping to make is that the experience of homelessness is, often, typified by drug use and violence. These behaviors erode the moral compass of individuals and society.
It is important to get Oregon's homeless crisis under control. I believe that perhaps if there were better resources available to help people who are drug addicted and homeless. Sadly, one of the biggest attractions to being homeless in Oregon is that the state provides so many benefits that don't address the actual problems. | TA
Great insight. Well written. Perhaps the best ideas for reducing homelessness could come from your own experience. Thanks for putting yourself on the page.